Hypnosis has been used in the treatment of pain, depression, anxiety, stress, habit disorders, and many other psychological problems or for all patients or clients. Again, it is the opinion of the authors of this statement that the decision to use hypnosis as an adjunct to treatment can only be made in consultation with qualified health care provider who has been trained in the used and limitations of clinical hypnosis. In addition to its use in clinical settings, hypnosis is used in research, with the goal of learning more about the nature of hypnosis itself, as well as its impact on sensation, perception, learning, memory, and physiology.
Researchers also study the value of hypnosis in the treatment of physical and psychological problems. Hypnosis may be operationally defined as a method used to assess, treat, and stabilize patients recently traumatized (van der Hart & Spiegel, 1993, p. 191). Cathartic-hypnothic methods are used “mainly in the sense of cognitive revivification” (p. 195) and re-exposure to traumatic recollection (van der Hart & Spiegel, 1993). Hypnosis is part of the psychotherapeutic spectrum and is useful in managing traumatic experience (van der Hart & Spiegel, 1993).
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is well known for symptoms and registers in the physical and emotional systems of sufferers (Brewin, 2003; Gray & McNaughton, 2002). These may appear dramatically in specific bodily sites implicated in the abuse (van der KoIk, McFarlane, & Weisath, 1996)-what van der Kolk refers to as “motoric imprints” (van der Kolk, 2003, p. 17). Managing the physiological registers and attendant sympathetic nervous system hyperarousal is primary in PTSD therapy (Brewin, 2003), and hypnosis has been used to assist in such management (Brewin, 2003).
There is clear clinical evidence of the relationship between dissociation and trauma. Many patients describe traumatic experiences such as physical and sexual violence or near death experiences as a “sensation of floating” out of one’s own body with feelings of compassion towards the person suffering the attack. They also mention time distortion, visual hallucinations and other sensory alterations. It seems that people able to dissociate and with high hypnotizability can mobilize these defenses in situations of physical trauma.
People’s post-traumatic beliefs about their environment, their development of control mechanisms that reduce the trauma’s affect and their adaptive psychological and physical symptoms have been the underlying criteria in the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PSTD) (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Persons experiencing posttraumatic stress symptoms reflect mental processes arising from an event that is that is categorically beyond the normal scope of human experience (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).
The complexity of individual’s belief and perceptions of such an event often contributes to a selectivity of memory (Munsterberg, 1908/1927). Due in part to the mechanisms of memory, people’s recollection events may be incomplete and difficult to sort through, even during memory recall procedures that are patient and methodical (Munsterberg, 1927). Consciously or unconsciously, people’s perceptions alter their beliefs, which in turn raises questions of the veracity and rationality of what they remember (Munsterberg, 1927).